Company Makes A Pitch For Industrial Park In Space

November 8, 1985|By Tim Smart of The Sentinel Staff

To hear Maxime Faget tell it, the only hitch to full-scale business in space is the cost of getting there and back.

But that cost, estimated by Faget at $2,000 for each pound of material carried into orbit, is not likely to drop until more companies take advantage of the opportunities to make goods 300 miles above the Earth, he said.

Faget, president of a Houston company that is trying to build an industrial park in space, presented that chicken-and-egg dilemma Thursday to about 125 people who attended a seminar on space manufacturing. The forum was sponsored by Pasha Publications Inc., a Virginia-based publisher of trade newsletters, including Space Business News and Military Space.

''Access to space is now limited by the duration of the flight,'' said Faget, a former engineer and manager with NASA. ''There's always a debate whether to extend the flight an extra one or two days.''

One way to solve the problem would be a space station, which would allow workers to remain in space for longer periods. The Industrial Space Facility proposed by Faget's company would serve as a platform for experiments and the manufacturing of such high-value goods as electronic crystals and pharmaceuticals. Workers would commute to Faget's space factory on the shuttle, which also would serve as their temporary home.

Faget would not say how much his proposed industrial park would cost, though NASA has indicated that such a project could carry a $500 million price tag.